Author: Thomas Grant
Narrator: Jonathan Keeble
Unabridged: 17 hr 48 min
Format: Digital Audiobook
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 05/30/2019
'These tales of eleven trials are shocking, squalid, titillating and illuminating: each of them says something fascinating about how our society once was' The TimesCourt Number One of the Old Bailey is the most famous court room in the world, and the venue of some of the most sensational human dramas ever to be played out in a criminal trial.The principal criminal court of England, historically reserved for the more serious and high-profile trials, Court Number One opened its doors in 1907 after the building of the 'new' Old Bailey. In the decades that followed it witnessed the trials of the most famous and infamous defendants of the twentieth century. It was here that the likes of Madame Fahmy, Lord Haw Haw, John Christie, Ruth Ellis, George Blake (and his unlikely jailbreakers, Michael Randle and Pat Pottle), Jeremy Thorpe and Ian Huntley were defined in history, alongside a wide assortment of other traitors, lovers, politicians, psychopaths, spies, con men and - of course - the innocent. Not only notorious for its murder trials, Court Number One recorded the changing face of modern British society, bearing witness to alternate attitudes to homosexuality, the death penalty, freedom of expression, insanity and the psychology of violence. Telling the stories of twelve of the most scandalous and celebrated cases across a radically shifting century, this book traces the evolving attitudes of Britain, the decline of a society built on deference and discretion, the tensions brought by a more permissive society and the rise of trial by mass media.From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Jeremy Hutchinson's Case Histories, Court Number One is a mesmerising window onto the thrills, fears and foibles of the modern age.(P) Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
"This horror story made international headlines. It shows brutality in its most extreme form, a wilful act of cruel injustice for which the Libyan government stands accused. Reading this book will make you cry." Dries Brunt, "Citizen Newspaper", Sou...
The Media ran exaggerated accounts of his bravado and colorful personality, styling him as a Robin Hood figure. In response, J. Edgar Hoover, then director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), used Dillinger and his gang as his campaign platform to...
Before there was Charles Ponzi, there was Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith II. The famed Old West con artist and gangster's criminal career ranged from Texas to Alaska, from Denver to the Klondike. But Smith was not predestined to becom...
Sprightly swing music spills across the dimly lit club. The grayish curtains of cigarette smoke part every once in a while to reveal a sparkling stage and tables upon tables of patrons, some incurably inebriated and others high on the fast-paced nig...
Pablo Escobar Murderer, philanthropist, drug dealer, politician, devil, saint: many words have been used to describe Pablo Escobar, but one is irrefutable - legend. For the poor of Colombia, he was their Robin Hood, a man whose greatness lay not in ...
When Chris Bryson was discovered nude and severely beaten stumbling down Charlotte Street in Kansas City in 1988, Police had no idea they were about to discover the den of one of the most sadistic American serial killers in recent history. This is t...
In partnership with Texas Monthly, Michael Hall's "The Trouble with Innocence" is now available as an audio download, where the length and timeliness of a podcast meets the high-quality production of a full-length audio program.In 1978, a Texas jury...
November 1, 1932 was a fine autumn day in the sleepy, cotton-farming city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, the heart of Sequoyah County. The blinding rays of the midday sun were shining their brightest, but the otherwise blistering heat was offset by a brisk...
Arguably the largest and most successful criminal enterprise in history, at times the Medellin drug cartel was smuggling 15 tons of cocaine a day, worth more than half a billion dollars, into the United States. Roberto Escobar knows - he was the ac...